ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - ABC 891 Adelaide with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan
2 April 2014
 

SUBJECTS: Child Protection Checks; WA Senate by-election; Assistance for the Motor Vehicle Industry; Climate Change.

COMPERE:

Christopher Pyne, Federal Education Minister and Leader of the Government in the House of Reps joins us now from Perth where he is campaigning for the WA Senate election, good morning Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Good morning.

COMPERE:

And Mark Butler, Labor MP for Port Adelaide, Opposition Environment and Climate Change spokesperson in our studio here in Adelaide, good morning.

MARK BUTLER:

Good morning gentleman and to Christopher.

COMPERE:

Christopher Pyne, just before we move on to other issues, we’ve just been talking about child protection and Dennis Hood from Family First says there are, there has got to be a better way, a more comprehensive way, to check who is working with our kids, whether they are private tutors or they are teachers in schools, and he’s saying in Queensland they have got a ‘Blue Card’ system, it’s much more comprehensive, it’s much more streamlined, if you want to work with a child in Queensland apparently need one of these cards.  Do you think there is some merit in something like that, a national scheme; you are the federal Education Minister?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Well I am, thank you, yes.  I don’t think there is a call for a national scheme for a matter that is a State responsibility, but I certainly support what Dennis Hood has said about the protection of our children in our schools and I would very much recommend what Queensland has done to Jennifer Rankine, the State Minister for Education in South Australia. But I don’t think that every time there is a problem at the State level the immediate reflexive action should be that the national Government needs to fix it.

COMPERE:

No, but something that crossed borders.  While you are doing this, if you had a national scheme, standard, everybody knew what they were doing, whether you were looking after a child in Adelaide or then you get on a bus and tried to do whatever you were doing in Adelaide in Brisbane, you were caught by the same system.  Has some merit?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Well it does have some merit and the Commonwealth Government is always happy to facilitate State and Territories working together especially to protect our children.  There is no doubt about that.  But we wouldn’t take responsibility for a State area of governance.  But very happy through the Standing Committee of Education Ministers to discuss such matters but at the end of the day, the State Governments are responsible for schools and Jennifer Rankine probably should look at that idea for South Australia and there could be national-coordination for it, something that the Commonwealth Government could look at.  But at the end of the day, the States have to implement it.

COMPERE:

Everyone wants to look at it, let’s all look at it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

The State Governments are responsible for it, Matthew, and quite frankly if I was Jennifer Rankine that is exactly what I would do.  But I am not the State Minister for Education, she is.

COMPERE:

Okay, Mark Butler? You want someone to look at it?

MARK BUTLER:

Well, this is not my portfolio area, I heard a bit of that interview.  I’m not briefed on it, it is not something I have looked at, I don’t really have anything to add to what Jennifer said.

COMPERE:

We have got a text here saying, ’I work with children and volunteer with four community groups working with children.  I had five police checks last year, bring on the Working With Children Card’ - so Margaret thinks it is a great idea.

COMPERE:

Now, on to another issue, Christopher Pyne, The Age reports this morning, the car worker fund, the $100 million salvage package for redundant car industry workers is underfunded and disarray more than a month after Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s promise to announce the details of this assistance programme, this is for motor vehicle workers, it is not met itself self-imposed March deadline.  The reviews have not yet been discussed at Cabinet level, and won’t be until the next scheduled Cabinet meeting on April 14, and this is what Victorian Premier Denis Napthine said about it on the 774 morning programme, just a few minutes ago:.

Premier Napthine [excerpt]:

 

One of the dilemmas with that $100 million that was announced by Tony Abbott is that when Tony Abbott announced it the Federal Government put their share of the funding on the table, immediately I as Premier of Victoria put our share of Victorian money on the table.  We were looking for assistance from Toyota but the South Australian Government have been absolutely recalcitrant and they have not put $1 on the table to that fund, now we know that they are distracted by an election. That election is now over and it is up to the Premier, Jay Weatherill, to now announce how much South Australia’s prepared to contribute to that fund.

COMPERE:

Chris Pyne, shouldn’t the Federal Government, if it has got a deadline of March and it is now April where it has apparently not been to Cabinet yet, shouldn’t it be cracking the whip and getting this assistance package operating on its own deadline?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Well the Federal Government has pledged $60 million to a fund to ensure the workers in the car industry are given the necessary training and new career development in order to be able to use their formidable skills in a different part of the economy.  The South Australian Labor Government is yet to pledge any money whatsoever so Jay Weatherill is very good at talking about things rather than actually doing things. And I would ask him to put some money where his mouth is about their Holden workers, I definitely support that call from the Victorian Premier.

COMPERE:

Mark Butler, are you able – this is outside your portfolio….

MARK BUTLER:

No, but…

COMPERE:

Are you reluctant to talk about this, not briefed about it?

MARK BUTLER:

Not at all.

COMPERE:

Oh, okay.

MARK BUTLER:

This is something I have heard and read a lot about.

COMPERE:

Okay.

MARK BUTLER:

And frankly I think we are well beyond time for Tony Abbott to put some detail to the commitments he made about this. I mean Denis Napthine makes the unsurprising party political cheap shot, but it is the case where we have been going through an election campaign here, and it is also the case though that the Prime Minister has national responsibilities to put some details on the table about what he intends to do after his profound mismanagement of car industry issues after the last several months.  There is so much detail that he promised in February around the South Australian and Victorian economic transformation plans and particularly around the car industry plan which he said he would provide before the end of March.  It’s well beyond time, there are thousands and thousands of families… not just…

COMPERE:

It would be hard to have a plan out without the South Australian money on the table, wouldn’t it?

MARK BUTLER:

It would be nice to see some detail, what it was the Federal Government, Australia’s Government, wanted to do… and yes, then there…

COMPERE:

But wouldn’t you need all the money on the table…

MARK BUTLER:

And yes then there would have to be some negotiation and some of that would involve arm twisting, I am sure, between the two levels of Government but we have seen nothing from Australia’s national Government about what it is intends to do to assist the thousands of families who have been impacted by their profound mismanagement of the car industry over the last several months.

COMPERE:

Now on an issue in your portfolio area, climate change and the carbon tax.  The Prime Minister is campaigning along with Chris Pyne in these last few days before the Western Australian people return to re-vote, re-elect their WA Senate.  They are campaigning on the issue of the carbon tax.  If the people of Western Australia send you a clear message this time round, will Labor get it?  People don’t want the carbon tax.

MARK BUTLER:

Well, our candidates are taking exactly the same position we took to the September election.  That we support the termination of the carbon tax, but only on the basis that it is replaced with a credible policy alternative.  So you know, last week in the Senate we moved an Emissions Trading Scheme, the Greens Party and the Government combined to defeat that.  The Government wants to persist with this Direct Action Scheme which has been ridiculed by every climate scientist and economists who has looked at it. We are not going to support that position.

COMPERE:

Chris Pyne, will it work for you in Western Australia? You are over there at the moment, up very early to talk to us?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Well you have asked Mark Butler at least a question in his own portfolio, and in this week he has said in fact that we should increase our Emission Reduction Target to 15% so the Labor Party’s policy on the carbon tax is to actually increase it. 

MARK BUTLER:

I didn’t say that, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Their policy is to increase the carbon tax.

MARK BUTLER:

I didn’t say that, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Because the only way they would be able to achieve a 15% reduction of our emissions would be an even bigger carbon tax.  So not only have Labor ignored the election result last year, which was an emphatic rejection of the carbon tax in support for getting rid of it, they are now suggesting that they should increase the carbon tax, led by Mark Butler.

MARK BUTLER:

What I said was that the Climate Change Authority had recommended an increase to 15%, that the Government, which is you Christopher, have a statutory responsibility…

COMPERE:

We need to leave it there.

MARK BUTLER:

…to respond to that recommendation for the next several weeks.

COMPERE:

We are two minutes from the news, Chris Pyne, thank you, speaking to us from Perth, very early over there, Education Minister.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:

Pleasure. 

COMPERE:

Mark Butler, Climate Change spokesperson for Labor Party, thank you.

[ends]